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Post by joecrak on Jan 18, 2018 20:24:29 GMT -8
Stu, why are you not running L5R in 4e anyway? I was curious to see how the beta plays. Once I saw that the dice aren't narrative, but rather tied to specific game mechanics, I figured we'd do it. I've forgotten most of what I learned from 4th anyway, so I'd practically have to re-learn it all anyway. Might as well learn the new shiny. That would be a lot of stuff to relearn too... Also, like Stu said, but with a twist: Jim McClure sounds like he doesn't actually want to play a game that features a randomizer. Maybe he should just switch his dice for Itras By cards. And as for more hypotheticals, like falling in love with that elf princess: "Well, I do have the sucker for a pretty face aspect, so give me that fate point and I'm in love"
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 19, 2018 4:57:00 GMT -8
It seems to me that the problem of 'GM Agency' vs 'Player Agency' goes back to system and why we use a system of rules at all in the first place. Its a basic problem of agreement, that being we don't. 'Am I afraid?' is no different than, 'Can I jump this gap?' Simply, as we are not actually there and we can't see what would actually happen, we have to come to a consensus. Things to which we are likely not to agree on are typically handled via the rules. The only matter in debate is typically where the dividing line exists for when that engagement with the rules begins. Should it begin at supernatural events or should it apply broadly?
This is why different systems and different genre's impose different rules on the game. Important elements that are going to be a theme of the game get rules. Those rules may call for rolls or simply give the GM carte blanch to declare things. Maybe I have to roll to make a break for it across the machine gun fire (as is the case with suppression in the WH40K games), or maybe I get 5 insanity points for seeing dread Cthulhu. All those things are governed by the rules and are an agreed upon part of the social contract of our game.
Word choice does matter though. It is one thing to say an inn is 'Homey'. It is another to say, 'It reminds you of home'. One is a description, the other is saying something about a characters home. It could be that my character is an amnesiac and is suddenly struck by the feeling that I used to live somewhere like this. It could also signal that something is altering my perception of this place. If you were to roll a die behind a screen and than declare, "This inn reminds you of home", you send an entirely different message than, "The inn is homey".
The rolling of the die signals the player that the rules are being invoked, which makes it okay for the GM to tell him how he feels when it otherwise wouldn't (in this example). In a horror game where the character is an amnesiac in a foggy New England town, the GM doesn't need to roll the dice because telling the player that type of thing is part of his condition.
All this is to say that not every game or group is playing by the same rules. If you and your players are butting heads over agency, its time you revisit those rules together.
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mrcj
Journeyman Douchebag
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Post by mrcj on Jan 19, 2018 16:58:24 GMT -8
The player has complete control over the backstory. The GM has control over the setting and the plot. Backstory in the intersection of character and setting. It belongs to both player and GM. A GM adding something that compromises the main motivation or conceit of the character without player input is wrong. A player adding something game breaking or setting breaking and expecting to make it to the table is also wrong. Hey @tim can I play a ninja? The player shouldn't have the FINAL word on what does and does not make it in their backstory. It's their job to come up with one and get it OK'd by the GM. Just as it's the GM's job to mine from said backstory and add nuanced bits of flavor in there. I'm with chronovore on this one. Hopefully there is time on the front end for the GM and player to come to an agreement. Character's backstory wants that are not game breaking should be respected, at the same time there is always that guy (sometimes me as a teen) "My dad is a ninja and my mom is the princess of Azerbaijan." As a GM I am reluctant to hand players a blank check.
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D.T. Pints
Instigator
JACKERCON 2018: WITH GREAT POWER COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY June 22-July 1st
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Post by D.T. Pints on Jan 19, 2018 18:53:58 GMT -8
Yipe! As Stu Venable mentioned on the show this looks amazing but fuck me it ain’t cheap... Man I miss my wheelchair bound space lawyer.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 19, 2018 23:06:35 GMT -8
Listening to the show again made me consider this from another angle. Do any of us really have agency? Is every decision you make a conscious one? Imagine the classic “can’t pull the trigger” situation. Is that person deciding not to do it? Are they the designer of their own fate in that scenario? What about all the heroes who run into burning buildings? Most of them say they just did it (radiolab recently did a story about this if you don’t want to take my word for it).
I love the idea that I have a choice. It’s an empowering idea. But is it the truth? If we all have a choice, than why does the insanity plea work in court? I assert that the more we figure out about neuroscience, the less we are going to attribute anything to choice. Addiction used to be seen as a weakness of character, but today its recognized as a disease. The alcoholic can’t help themselves, otherwise they wouldn’t be where they are.
How does this relate to gaming? Some games exist to mirror this kind of truth. In Monsterhearts you don’t predetermine your sexuality. Who or what turns you on is not something you have complete agency over. You can decide how you feel about what you feel. Perhaps you are conflicted because of your religious beliefs or you don’t want your feelings interfering with your macho image. That doesn’t make them go away.
Recently my coworker showed me his new taser. I’ve never seen one used in real life. Turns out they are loud. I knew I was in no danger, so why did I jump? It wasn’t because I chose to. I didn’t like that I had that reaction, but I wasn’t the arbiter of it either. See a pattern here?
Now some games and gamers will prefer to let the players be in complete control. You get to have the power fantasy that you are an unflinching badass. Other games are grittier. You have to pass a check to not give in when someone with a knife starts making demands. Some games model temptation into their rules and you may find yourself pulled against your judgement into a strange persons bed. It wasn’t something you chose for the character, it just happened.
Some games are played to find out. The players let the rules and situation dictate what happens. Not everyone wants to let go of that decision making power though. It’s important to be on the same page about the type of game being played and the expectations of the game.
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Post by Stu Venable on Jan 19, 2018 23:59:37 GMT -8
But there's a world of difference between individual agency and player agency. In our own lives, we, and our characters in a game, may not have real agency (especially if you assume most emotions are based on some sort of biological response), but the players don't exist in the analogy of RPG = real world.
In some games at least, players ARE the biological responses, the skeletons in the closet, the head full of emotional baggage. They are controlling the PC that thinks it has agency.
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fredrix
Master Douchebag
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Preferred Game Systems: Fate, L5R, Pendragon, Gumshoe, Feng Shui
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Post by fredrix on Jan 20, 2018 0:53:49 GMT -8
Very good point.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 20, 2018 2:21:03 GMT -8
But there's a world of difference between individual agency and player agency. In our own lives, we, and our characters in a game, may not have real agency (especially if you assume most emotions are based on some sort of biological response), but the players don't exist in the analogy of RPG = real world. In some games at least, players ARE the biological responses, the skeletons in the closet, the head full of emotional baggage. They are controlling the PC that thinks it has agency. Indeed. Different strokes for different folks and all that. The main question of any rpg is: "What do you do?", however what you do is attempt things, not declare them successful. What we think of as the usual resolution to an action can be played out differently. Say a player wants to jump a gap. What if the question asked wasn't "if" he could make the jump, but "if" he had the guts to attempt it at all? Take one of the early scenes in The Matrix as an example. Neo is trying to escape the building he works in when the agents come to round him up. Morpheus is on the line directing him. Neo dodges around the office till he makes it to the corner office and has to step out on the ledge. From there he has to make it to a scaffold. If this were an rpg and a test were being rolled, it would not be to determine if he makes the jump or falls, but rather if he chickens out or not. Was Neo's player's agency taken away because he was asked to make a check to overcome his fears? The Matrix is ostensibly a power fantasy, so why can't Neo just do it? It's all about theme. Right now, Neo isn't The One. He's an office worker with a dual life as a hacker. Neither of those things has prepared him for a harrowing climb out onto a 20th story ledge. If the same test were to occur after his training, he surely wouldn't need to roll to overcome his fear in order to make the jump. At first I thought stork 's assertion that it was a moving goalpost was a cop out, but the more I look at the problem the more I realize that the 'rules' of when you can pull away agency can vary over the course of a story as a character transforms. In fact, one way to make the Heroes Journey more poignant might be an increased doling out of agency. In a way its a type of growth never tracked with XP.
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D.T. Pints
Instigator
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Post by D.T. Pints on Jan 20, 2018 7:31:00 GMT -8
Is that the whole point of a “leveling” or experience based system ? The characters start out initially very constrained by the world and much of what they try or would like to do is hindered by their abilities. A pack of wolves on the way to the village presents a very real possibility of death, the fear they impact on the characters should likely be palpable. “My fighter doesn’t fear death!” Cut to her being reduced to zero hit points, failed death saves and torn limb from limb. Do the other PCs feel fear? Unless they are playing a cold emotionless race it would seem that they should.
Then as ability and experience increase basic threats are no longer dangerous and they can more plausibly take increasing control of what in the world causes them fear.
Jeez I’m rusty when it comes to pontificating about RPGs. Back to Monster Trucks!
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Post by ericfromnj on Jan 20, 2018 9:55:20 GMT -8
Stu, why are you not running L5R in 4e anyway? I was curious to see how the beta plays. Once I saw that the dice aren't narrative, but rather tied to specific game mechanics, I figured we'd do it. I've forgotten most of what I learned from 4th anyway, so I'd practically have to re-learn it all anyway. Might as well learn the new shiny. Ok. That makes sense. Due to the fact that Star Wats and I didn’t click I have not looked at the new L5R beta. I didn’t realize the dice were not narrative like Star Wars.
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Post by chronovore on Jan 20, 2018 18:06:14 GMT -8
I like your example, and at the same time you're discussing two different forms of storytelling. The Matrix is a noninteractive movie, scripted, edited, revised and finally committed to film for audiences to passively enjoy. Neo's "player" is also the GM and is also the adventure module's author, etc. If you want a full treatise on this, please enjoy Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Because in The Matrix, Neo does not have any choice, he's going to do what he's going to do, including speaking with the Oracle and breaking the vase because she warns him he's going to break the vase. Neo CANNOT make his way across the outside ledge because he does not make it across the outside ledge because he's not The One yet, etc. And the first person who talks about Neo's "Agents-y" is gonna get cut. Stu Venable has referred to the college GURPS game I ran for him and Infamous Fred, where they were playing themselves during a zombie apocalypse. When I wanted to transition them to the feudal, postapocalyptic future, it was essentially the previously debated railroading, the Schrodinger's troll question of is it on the left road or the right one, and the answer is "it's on whichever road the players take." The bomb was going to go off and take them with it, I masked their lack of choice as well as I could, but it was going to happen. Yeah, this isn't about player agency of their own character, but it /is/ about players being able to make meaningful choices. They were able to interact and determine their own reactions to what felt like impending doom, and I think that is better than me reading aloud a bunch of stuff that happens in the world, and takes them along with it. It seems to have made a decent impression on the players despite being railroaded into it. Does that make me a bad guy? Am I a dick GM? Or is it okay because the players trusted me not to put their characters in a no-win situation?
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Post by Stu Venable on Jan 20, 2018 22:27:56 GMT -8
That was a fantastic story! I remember how fucked I felt by the fact that seemingly EVERYONE was gone from the modern world. When we stumbled upon the tertiary event (IIRC it was the test of a new nuclear weapon of some sort), either Fred or I suggested going to the epicenter and see what happens. When we woke up and there were people around, I was so relieved!
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Post by Stu Venable on Jan 20, 2018 22:28:52 GMT -8
I also remember me and Fred arguing about me keeping guns and him keeping coke.
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Post by akavidar on Jan 21, 2018 5:15:02 GMT -8
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Post by chronovore on Jan 21, 2018 7:12:46 GMT -8
I also remember me and Fred arguing about me keeping guns and him keeping coke. That was so hilarious. All I knew was to ask, OK, how useful is this truck full of stuff going to be, and one of you critted the roll, so it was stocked. When I tried to figure out a reasonable scenario, it made sense that it was a drug dealer's bugout buggy you'd found. So I didn't think about the coke except that it would be in there. Fred determined it'd be useful. LOL — you were all about the weapons, which he didn't want around. I also thought he'd be stoked to learn spellcasting, but when I made a mouth in his hand start whispering secrets to him, he was going to chop it off. There's just no pleasing some people.
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